Sunday, August 25, 2013

2013 Chachi #57b Casper Wells

One Sentence Summary: The Phillies managed to tie up this game in the eighth, only to eventually lose ten innings later in the 18th after relieverCasper Wells couldn't stop the Diamondbacks.

What It Means: It means I'm tired. I decided to stay up and watch this entire game, finally turning off the TV around 2:30 Sunday morning.

2013 Phillies Team Issue 2 #50

What Went Wrong: This is one of those historical wacky games that merits a bullet-pointed list in lieu of the standard sentence and paragraph format:

Starting pitcher Ethan Martin threw just 44 pitches in his outing, retiring only two batters before getting the hook in the first. He allowed three runs on three hits while walking three. Relievers Luis Garcia and Zach Miner gave up a pair of runs each to put the game pretty much out of reach for the Phils. Or so it seemed . . .

Down 6-0 heading to the bottom of the fifth, the Phillies crept back into the ballgame and eventually tied it at seven on Darin Ruf's two-run home run in the eighth.

From the seventh through the 17th innings, the Phillies bullpen held the Diamondbacks scoreless. The scheduled starter for Sunday's game, Tyler Cloyd, entered in the 12th and pitched five scoreless innings. He also ripped a double to lead off the 16th, but the the Phils weren't able to get him home.

With the bullpen used up and only starting pitchers left in the stable, interim manager Ryne Sandberg opted to use outfielder Wells to pitch the 18th. Wells retired the first two batters he faced, but then allowed a series of walks and hits to give the Diamondbacks the lead. Fellow position player John McDonald relieved Wells and recorded the final out of the inning, but only after the Diamondbacks had scored five runs.

Wells had one of the worst single game performances in recent history. He went 0 for 7 at the plate with four strikeouts and allowed five runs in relief. That's a rough day at the ballyard.

The time of game of 7:06 made this the longest game in franchise history.

2012 Choice Lehigh ValleyIronPigs Update #9

Featured Cards: The Wells card featured here is an extremely rare, super short-printed Chachi card available only as inserts in random box tops of the 2013 Chachi set. Wells' more readily available Chachi card was published early this morning as the game was drawing to a close.

Former Phillie farmhand Tuffy Gosewisch spent 7 1/2 years toiling in the team's minor league system before being sold "for no compensation" to the Toronto Blue Jays last July. He finally made it to the big leagues with the Diamondbacks earlier this month. Gosewisch made two outs in the 18th inning, off non-pitchers Wells and McDonald. He's got to be the first person in history to accomplish that feat.

3 comments:

Happy to hear you stayed up late watching it...I was hoping that MLB network would do a cut-in once the non-pitchers took the mound, and they did. Thought Casper threw pretty hard and fairly accurately. Would have loved to see Tuffy make 2 of the 3 outs in the inning!

I stayed up until the end too (although I only monitored the score on the MLB At-Bat app until the 8th when they tied it, at which point I switched it on). This was the type of game that is the reason I watch baseball--unexpectedly on a random Saturday night with a weak team, the Phillies play their longest game ever. I was trying to convince some friends that we should drive down there around the 13th, but no one was responding to my texts except for a friend in California and a cousin who was firmly settled in at a bar and wasn't going anywhere.

It's hard to get too down on Casper Wells. He could have kept his mouth shut when Ryne asked who could pitch, but he gave it the old college try and almost had a 1-2-3 inning.

The only bummer for me was that my extended family had our annual R-Phils trip planned and had had tickets for Sunday's game since April. For several days we thought we'd be sitting in excellent seats to watch Doc pitch, but it wasn't to be. Ah well, easy come, easy go.